Ukrainians protest en masse to oust president

AFP, KIEV

Hundreds of thousands of pro-EU Ukrainians rallied in Kiev yesterday for a new protest aimed at forcing Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych to resign after he sparked fury by rejecting an EU pact under Kremlin pressure. Waving EU and Ukrainians flags, as well as the red-and-black banners of the wartime anti-communist Ukrainian Insurgent Army, about 200,000 demonstrators filled Kiev’s iconic Independence Square to the bursting point.

Jailed former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko said the opposition was demanding the “immediate” resignation of Yanukovych, in a statement to the mass rally read by her daughter that was met by chants of “resign” from the throng.

“Yanukovych took a decision to join the club of dictators,” Yevgenia Tymoshenko quoted her mother as saying in a message from detention. “We must peacefully and legally oust him from power.”

“He is no longer the president of our state, he is a tyrant who must answer for every drop of blood that has been shed,” she added.

Some of the protesters wore helmets in an apparent attempt to protect themselves in the event of possible clashes with riot police as a priest read a prayer from stage.

Trademark nationalist chants reverberated through the overcrowded Kiev metro as more protesters sought to join the protest.

“Glory to Ukraine,” they shouted.

“Glory to heroes,” others replied.

Yanukovych’s decision to drop political and free-trade agreements with the EU in favor of tighter Russian ties and a crackdown last week on protesters plunged the ex-Soviet nation into its worst political crisis in a decade. The president on Friday incensed the opposition and its supporters further by discussing the signing of a strategic partnership treaty with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who wants Ukraine to join a Moscow-led Customs Union.

The protests in Ukraine have raged for over two weeks after the government abruptly announced it was halting the work on the agreements with the EU. On Dec. 1, hundreds of thousands took to the streets in Kiev and pro-EU western Ukraine in the largest demonstrations since the pro-democracy Orange Revolution in 2004 forced the annulment of fraud-tainted elections initially claimed by Yanukovych.

The rally in Kiev descended into unprecedented clashes with riot police in which hundreds were injured.

The protesters subsequently occupied Independence Square, keeping police out by erecting barricades around it. They also seized Kiev City Hall, with dozens sleeping there overnight.

Boxing champion turned opposition leader Vitali Klitschko had said 1 million should take to the streets of Kiev yesterday.

Yanukovych, who faces an election in 2015, has promised a thorough investigation into the use of force against the protesters, but has not said whether he is ready to sit down for talks with the opposition.

Putin has slammed the protests, saying they looked more “like a pogrom than a revolution,” but the West has urged the Ukrainian authorities to heed the demands of the protest movement.

Elmar Brok, chairman of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, said during a visit to Kiev on Saturday that the bloc may introduce travel bans against those responsible for the use of violence against the protesters.